Our Competitive Advantage to AI

AI can mimic process, but not profound insight.

I have always been fascinated by transformative ideas and their execution.

It’s a big reason why I love technology. And even though AI has recently gained a bad reputation because of its effect on employment, to me it remains a neutral tool. I see it as no different from a chair, which can be used to sit comfortably at a table or picked up to hit people on the street. It all depends on how we use it.

So naturally, as technology progressed and I continued working in the field, I started noticing something interesting: there is one type of thinking that AI can replicate well.

But first, let’s look at the kinds of thinking that exist.

There seem to be two broad types.

The first one has been glorified throughout history, and it is still heavily studied and replicated today. It’s the rational mind, or logic: the ability to think in steps, sequentially. People love this for a reason: it can be reproduced. There is something deeply reassuring about hearing that someone reached a goal and then created a tutorial explaining exactly how they did it.

I know I’ve done this many times with hair and make-up tutorials. The moment I loved a certain hairstyle or make-up look, I immediately searched YouTube to see what tools, products, and techniques were used. Even if I was bad at first, I eventually improved through repetition.

But there is another layer to all of this.

Many brilliant people throughout history seem to have received extraordinary ideas out of… nowhere.

If I stood under a tree and let an apple fall on my head, I probably would not discover another law of gravity like Isaac Newton. If I threw a stone into water and heard the sound it made, I likely would not instantly realize that sound travels in waves like Leonardo da Vinci. And I certainly don’t wake up at 3 a.m. with complete soundtracks in my mind like Michael Jackson or Paul McCartney.

These moments cannot be replicated step by step in the same way logic can.

They are closer to what we call serendipity.

Serendipity = the fact of finding interesting or valuable things by chance.

The Mastery book (by Robert Greene) explains this beautifully. He suggests that after thousands of hours of practice (sometimes up to 20,000), we develop a kind of instinct. Our field of mastery begins to feel almost like breathing. The logical tasks become so deeply embedded in us that mechanics no longer consumes us. Our attention becomes free to notice new ideas, unexpected connections, and intersections between fields.

So perhaps brilliant ideas come from a mix of discipline and luck; from years of learning that sharpen our ability to recognize opportunities, and from those rare flashes of insight that seem to arrive as a consequence of the immersed work.

I see this as our hard-earned advantage: becoming so deeply immersed in work we truly enjoy that, over time, we build new neural pathways, and receive the most spectacular gift of all: a new idea.